Sermons & Divrei Torah

On Friday, Senior Rabbinic Fellow Joe Blumberg offered a complementary image: teshuvah as a dance of losing our footing, regrounding ourselves, and moving forward again.

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Rabbi Deena Cowans draws on the ancient image of the Ouroboros (and the perhaps less ancient image of a Slinky) to imagine teshuvah not as an endless loop, but as a spiral, where even small turns can build momentum toward change.

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In this week’s D’var Torah, Shira Bodnar, rabbinic intern (Family Life & Learning), reflects on inheritance—what we receive, what is missing, and what we create for those who come after us. Drawing on the ritual of the first fruits in Parashat Ki Tavo and her own search for her family’s stories, she invites us to use the work of Elul not simply to look backward, but to decide what we want to carry forward, what we want to transform, and what kind of story we want to write with our lives. WATCH or LISTEN on your favorite podcast platform →

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In her Kabbalat Shabbat kavannah, Rabbi Felicia Sol draws on the music of Ishay Ribo and Dolly Parton to reflect on the work of Elul: acknowledging what is broken while remembering that we are already beloved. As we approach the Yamim Nora'im, she reminds us that we don’t have to wait until we are whole to return. We can bring our beautiful pieces and our frayed edges, and begin stitching ourselves and our communities back together.

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In this week’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Alex Braver wrestles with what it means to love a tradition that is ancient, sacred, and imperfect. Confronting troubling texts in Parashat Ki Tetze, he asks how we can remain rooted in 3,000 years of tradition without ignoring its rough edges, ultimately suggesting that loving Torah, like loving a community, another person, or ourselves, means learning to love something flawed while still striving to make it better.

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Following the frightening disruption at Central Synagogue and the vandalism of our partner community Kol HaNeshama in Jerusalem, Rabbi Alex Braver reflects on what it means to take real threats seriously without allowing fear to close us off from one another.

Our tradition, he says, asks us to hold both: to build safe communities and attend to genuine fear, while continuing the sacred work of seeing, caring for, and transforming how we relate to others.

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In this week’s D’var Torah, BJ Rabbinic Fellow Iliana Brodsky explores what Parashat Shoftim can teach us about the pursuit of justice and the damage done when systems meant to protect us are used for vengeance or personal gain. As we enter Elul, she shares that teshuvah and interpersonal repair are themselves acts of justice, helping us build not only stronger relationships, but a society more capable of pursuing what is right and fair.

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In her Friday night kavannah, Rabbi Becca Weintraub reflects on Shabbat as a kind of silent shofar, a sacred interruption that calls us to stop, listen, and ask whether we are living the lives we want to live. As we begin the journey toward the Yamim Noraim, she shared that Elul is an invitation to return to the deepest and truest parts of who we already are, not to become someone entirely new.

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In this week’s D’var Torah, Cantor Dave Mintz explores how ritual can transform us through intention, attention, and repetition. Drawing on Parashat Re-eh as we approach Elul, he invites us to ask not simply whether a sacred practice speaks to us, but what it might be trying to awaken within us, and what it can teach us to notice that we cannot learn another way.

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